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Carphone Warehouse, Europe's largest mobile phone retailer, said on Wednesday that its full-year earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation would fall below market forecasts by as much as 10 percent due to tough trading conditions particularly in Europe. Total revenues fell nine percent during the three months to December 2001 compared with the year before, pressured by a 16 percent drop in European sales. The company said that the overall market for mobile phones has fallen by an estimated 40 percent in Europe.
In the UK the company reported connections of 661,000 against 687,000 last year while European connections dropped from 529,000 last year to 484,000. However, connections excluding Germany, The Netherlands and Belgium were up three percent on last year, those three markets cited as performing particularly badly.
In the four weeks of Christmas trade, UK connections were down by 15,000 from 318,000 to 303,000. While European connections were 228,000 compared to 251,000 last year. Group connections were 531,000 compared to 569,000 last year. "The overall market for mobile handset sales will continue to be tough for the next six months," said Charles Dunstone, chairman and chief executive. "We intend however to continue to grow our market share, our subscription connection numbers and our quality of earnings. In addition we foresee an ongoing contraction in the total number of distribution points for mobile phones across Europe."
The announcement by the company has sent its stock plummeting and as of 10:30 GMT Carphone Warehouse was down 13.27 percent on the FTSE250 and was trading at STG0.98 having closed at STG1.125 on Tuesday.
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